In this study, a multiphase three-dimensional numerical model using the volume of fluid method is applied to investigate tsunami-like bores propagating over dry and wet flume beds and their interaction with a structural model. Physical results from a set of laboratory experiments conducted at the Canadian Hydraulics Centre of the National Research Council (NRC-CHC) in Ottawa, Canada, are used to perform a quantitative and qualitative validation of the numerical model results. Hydraulic bores, with varying initial downstream depths, generated by the sudden opening of a gated reservoir are released into a channel and impact a free-standing structure located downstream in the flume. Simultaneously, the authors analyze their propagation characteristics. Time-histories of run-up, pressure, and net base shear force acting on the structure placed in the downstream flume section are analyzed to further understand the development of hydrodynamic loading. Furthermore, an analysis of the velocity fields, before and during interaction with the structure, is presented to elucidate how the bed condition (wet or dry) effects water surface elevation and loading on the structural model.

Summary Multiphase inertia‐dominated flow simulations, and free surface flow models in particular, continue to this day to present many challenges in terms of accuracy and computational cost to industry and research communities. Numerical wave tanks and their use for studying wave‐structure interactions are a good example. Finite element method (FEM) with anisotropic meshes combined with dynamic mesh algorithms has already shown the potential to significantly reduce the number of elements and simulation time with no accuracy loss. However, mesh anisotropy can lead to mesh quality‐related instabilities. This article presents a very robust FEM approach based on a control volume discretization of the pressure field for inertia dominated flows, which can overcome the typically encountered mesh quality limitations associated with extremely anisotropic elements. Highly compressive methods for the water‐air interface are used here. The combination of these methods is validated with multiphase free surface flow benchmark cases, showing very good agreement with experiments even for extremely anisotropic meshes, reducing by up to two orders of magnitude the required number of elements to obtain accurate solutions.

Over the past decade, the use of imaging devices to perform quantitative measurements has seen wide-scale adoption and has become integral to the emerging fields of research, such as computer vision and artificial intelligence. Recent studies, published across a wide variety of fields, have demonstrated a vast number of ways through which image-based measurement systems can be used in their respective fields. A growing number of studies have demonstrated applications in coastal and ocean research. Edge detection methods have been used to measure water surface and bedform elevation from recorded video taken during wave flume experiments. The turbulent mixing of air and water, induced by the breaking waves and the runup processes, poses a particular problem for the edge-detection methods, since they rely on a sharp contrast between air and water. In this paper, an alternative method for tracking water surface, based on color segmentation, is presented. A set of experiments were conducted whereby the proposed method was used to detect water surface profiles for various types of breaking waves interacting with a rubble mound breakwater. The results were further processed to compute the surface velocity during runup. The time-history of surface velocity is shown to closely parallel the point measurements taken nearby the instrumented armor unit. These velocities can potentially serve as boundary conditions for determining the dynamic loads exerted on the armour units. Further, the image processing results are used to remove the time-varying buoyant force from the measured force acting on an individual armour unit, providing additional insight into how the forces develop over time.

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This paper is concerned with the optimization of the transport motion of an open topped fluid filled container within a warehouse environment. In particular, optimal trajectories of the motion of the driver–container system in two‐dimensional space will be investigated via numerical solutions of the model equations using sequential quadratic programming. The fluid and the mechanical facility that moves the container are subject to several constraints. The objective of the optimization is the time to transport the container from an initial position to its final destination within the warehouse. Optimization criteria are investigated to control the movement of the fluid within the container. The systems of ordinary and partial differential equations, representing the dynamics of the models are solved numerically using a direct shooting method. The resulting non‐linear programming problem is solved using sequential quadratic programming (SQP). Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.